Fear spills into me, and soaks through every ***** like ink makes its way through paper. So effortless. Without hesitating.
I wonder if healing will ever feel less like dying.
Ive inhaled so much poison my lungs are nothing but corrupted flesh, Ive set fire to my stomach hoping that it will **** whatever is in there, eating me from the inside out.
None of it works.

I have spent my life surrounded by women who had eyes that betrayed their mouths. And bodies that betrayed their words.

I learned to whisper, and to adjust my posture so other people could breathe better.

Everytime my head shook back and forth
I detached it from my neck
And placed it in his hands.
I learned how to put my feelings into body bags and weigh them down with stones I had chipped out of the mountains of expectations I created.
I would throw them into an ocean and watch myself sink into the thick, infinite darkness.

I mourned every woman I drowned.

I caught a glimpse of a withering flower,
And I was embarassed by its honesty -
Its lack of hesitance to commit to something
Ive always thought to be so frightening.
I watched its petals curl into a position
That was vulnerable, and unwise.
The edges of its leaves wrinkled and lost its color,
And yet
I saw beauty.
I watched it dying,
Following the path that fate seemed to have drawn out long ago.
I blinked once, maybe twice.
And it was gone.
Life was over, all that was left
Was dirt.
What would I do now?
What is left in this world?
I felt my time had been wasted,
Searching for answers that are completely buried now.

I wept for that flower. For myself.

I then opened my eyes, and saw something bursting through the cold ground.
There was a brightness I had never felt before.
It was the same flower,
But it felt different.
Warm.

I begged for the flowers forgiveness
Confessing my weaknesses.
Spilling out my darkness into its
Soft, pure petals.

Immediately regretting my eagerness to reveal myself,
I expected to focus back onto a flower that would be destroyed again.
But she opened up,
The silk petals wiped me clean.
She sent me off to start over,
Just as she had shown me to.

My childhood was a mixed bag of
Climbing trees
And barbies,
With a handful of fire and brimstone thrown in.
I was taught that men are divine and I make a great support system just being a good woman.

I am simply a vessel for you
To feel
Important,
Controlled.
Strong.

My saviour.

Taking one last step and realizing there are none left.
Dreaming that you're falling and waking up seconds before you collide with the ground.
The last second before you jump off a diving board.
When you climb to the top of a tree and look down.
When you gulp back that last breath before letting the ocean pull you under the surface.

Waking up.

If I were to do girlhood again,
I'd have more anger.
I'd flirt with kerosene
And encourage myself to light the match.
The bridges would burn and I wouldn't feel one bit of hesitation.
I'd feel the feelings
And scream them at the top of mountains.
Everyone would hear me
And I wouldn't apologize to a single soul.
My parents would give me space,
They would ask for my attention but never assume it's available.
I'd feel alive
it'd be written all over my skin.
And whenever someone asked me about what those words meant, I would tell them.
My tone would be firm, and gentle.
I would expose every syllable
Without fear.
Because being known for who I truly was,
Wouldn't be scary
Like it is now.

I was born a clean slate. An empty house. I watched everyone around me decorate my walls as they wanted to see them. They filled my cupboards and organized my closet for me, filling it with words and feelings I never understood. It got to the point where I felt more confused than comfortable, and so empty - even with all of these things that life had filled me with. So I got angry. I tried over, and over again to redecorate. I put up new wallpaper everyday, I burned rooms to the ground. I locked doors, I broke windows.

And then I found my people, and they told me that I was lovable even as this filthy, dark house. With paint peeling, and cobwebs in every corner.

I started to rebuild, I put up art that made me feel things. And wrote poetry on my walls. Every moment I spent with my new people, and myself, I was sent home with a new piece of my house to put together.

And now Im here. The floors need to be redone, and it still smells of smoke, but its mine. And who I am is not a ***** word, I wear all of my labels as a full, connected human being.

If I eat the edges of the toast first and then the middle then there's no way I will feel sick after.
If I wake up and wash my hands and then eat a muffin that I've carefully separated the top from, and start with the bottom first then my day will be successful and I will have to make good choices.
And if I make the kids lunches the night before, then make sure I put them in their bags by 8:15 their days will be uncomplicated and safe.

Aren't these rules that everyone knows?

Being a child was burned to the ground the moment he sat me on his lap.
Being a teenager was searching for the next person to make me feel like he did.
Being a young adult was acting out the past in a new relationship with someone who had no idea what was coming.
Being a mother has been reliving trauma and healing.
Being a partner has been learning to let someone love me.
Being a human means I am still all of these people.

I am a kaleidoscope of all the broken parts of me.
Everytime I move
My pieces fall into a different place.
I wake up a new person more often
Than anyone I know.
Stability is not in me.
I am a gentle rush of color,
Rolling around in this life.
Never meant to be put back together.

I have a little girl inside of me named shame.
She was raised by people who didn't understand how to love.

When she gets loud - I hold her, and tell her that her bad days and hurt aren't what make her whole. It is all about us and our heart, and nurturing it while we grow.

There are so many times where we don't know how to decipher and seperate the obligation from choosing commitment.
Do we do this because
Soul mates?
Or do we do it because we said we were going to, and to end it now means we both lose.

If we could just be in love with eachother,
This could work.

My body is a padded room
And I feel like an alien inside of it
Set up with a small window,
Buttons and levers.
I don't know what any of them mean.
My skin feels like someone else's
And my limbs are too small for this oversized shell filled with human bones.
Where am I supposed to sit comfortably when I feel like every inch I exhale,
is taking up too much space.

This body of mine is not
Made up of braille.
You do not need to touch me
To know me.
I have felt emptiness
Through fingertips
Enough times to last me until
I die.
Give me warmth.
Look at me.
Show me what you mean.
I want to be taught how other people
Enjoy relationships and bodies
And don't flinch at the amount of movement created by humans walking past me, noisy and unaware of how it feels in my head.

I want calm comfort now.

My once grey sky, turned silver blue.
My hearts been floating in mid air,
Attached to my body only by the thought of you.
Rainbows and stars fill my body.
I am being taken away,
Held by your eyes and that sweet, angel face.
The bruises are disappearing,
Self doubt is leaving this tired place.
Is there hope?

A blank canvas becomes full of expression.

The waves crash and the birds fly
Farther and farther away from me.
The wind softly sings;
"Follow them".

Sometimes when all of my memories and thoughts about you build up, my tongue feels like its too big for my mouth and the wind feels like needles. My brain feels like cotton and all I can smell is that very specific, heart beating too fast, stomach in my throat kind of scent of you. I hate it.

I am the official family wound doctor.
Call on me when you want to
Be validated
Feel powerful
Or have someone acknowledge
Your heart with an -
"Oh you poor thing"
Or
"That is so unfair to you!".
Sometimes I'll throw in a
"You're so strong"
Just to add a little zest.
I have the fastest stitching hands,
I can hook up an IV without you even noticing the poke of the needle.
Cant vocalize your symptoms?
No problem, Im great at riddles
And deciphering cryptic messages.
You don't want to feel like you're the only one? Thats fine too.
I will remind you of all of my darkest corners and how hollow I am, so we can suffer and be poetic in our trauma together.

There is more to me than this made up story you've written, explaining my trauma and who really was at fault.
There is more to me than this role you've created for me, as your lifelong therapist and the one who validates you and all of those feelings.
There is more to me than that little girl who spent her entire childhood taking care of your heart and making sure that rope was tied to your waist, every time you fell down that black hole you loved more than any of us.

I want to start caring and encouraging myself as vigorously as I try to **** what is inside, hurting me.

The highs are high
And the lows
Are
Low.
I have synced up with the weather,
When it rains -
I do too.
When the sun says hello,
I run free.

I wonder what it would be like if I had been born with a brain that takes care of itself and grows appropriately, instead of this thing they molded for me.
That dwells in childhood and swings back and forth.

No, I am not your smoke
That you can light up when
You need to calm yourself.
Or put out when you're
Done with me.

Wholesome
Is something I feel only
When Im with you.

Tomorrow it will be 9 months.
9 months without them.
Without injesting whatever chemical
Would make me feel the most
Invisible.
Everyone keeps saying things like
"You must be so proud!"
And "You are working so hard".
But the only words I can hear is
"You are not worthy of this clean life"

Ive been reconstructed so many times
I dont even know who I am anymore.
My body is dead
My heart is dead
My broken insides are all thats left.
So how do I deal with that?
You ripped apart all the good parts of me,
Poked holes into what was sacred.
Changed everything I believed in.

Crystal white skin, stretched tight across those bones.
Empty and broken, all on your own.
Looking for a place,
A place.
A place.
You keep making war inside yourself.
Theres color and movement, but no emotional health.

Theres love. Then theres lust.
Then there is fear.

Rubbing my eyes, screaming my insecurities onto paper.

I think about my one destiny.
How their eyes shine so pure,
How I long to be.

Limb by limb, she swallows me whole.
Its quick, and I feel nothing.
The only peace I find is when Im being devoured.

I thought it would be cold and dark in here, but its the only place I manage to feel some warmth.

Which really, doesnt make sense. All she ever says to me is
"Better off dead"

It is not my job to prove who I am
To people who misunderstand me.
Removing myself from what hurts me
Is a solution, not running away.
I get to choose my family now.

The safe little nest Ive created
And burrowed in for a week
Is getting thinner and messier
And less safe.
I can see right through the
Paper thin walls,
Outside is covered in
Neon lights that spell out
SHAME.
I dread it.
I can feel it in my chest
Like Im about to ***** all of the
Feelings and words and tears.
Will I ever stop hating myself?
When will that burning in my stomach
Stop coming up,
Reminding me why I am desperate
To run.

I'm the strongest when I'm soft.
I love best when I am loved.
I am free when I'm alone.
I am most me when I am with you.

I fly highest with the kiss
And sink deepest with the rest.

I killed my father's daughter.
So now whos going to play opposite you?

I've already grieved her death,
It's been 7 years since I buried her.

This doesn't hurt me anymore.

But I can tell by how you hold yourself around me,
It hurts you.

I have lived many lifetimes of
Multiple identities,
None of them representing me
Truthfully.
And now I am trying to dig through
These piles of dirt
And find the bones I have
Hidden underneath.
Ive buried every person
I thought I should have become;
The seeds other people have planted
But forgot to water.
They poked holes and
Pushed that life inside of me
Without even asking me if
My soil was ready to nurture
Anything but myself
And the life I was born with.

You always smell like cinnamon. When you kiss me, you hold my neck like you're taking care of me. The rain and the truck and the backseat. The constant reassurance and gentle chuckle, like you just can't believe we are here. Its all the same. Pouring myself into you until I am half empty, convincing you I am that girl for you. All for you.

I am a haunted house
Buried deep, in the thickest of forests
Hoping that no one will ever discover me.

I can feel the sun here.
It warms every broken wall,
Every dusty, moss covered corner.

If there was any one memory
I hope to hold onto forever,
Its how it feels to have the babies
I created with love
Grew with every nurturing,
Womanly,
Mothering,
Love filled corner
Inside of me -
How it feels to have them
Breathe
Beside me.
Its never a gentle, or subtle involvement.
They crawl into my space and
Force their way into my skin
Like they are trying to become
A part of me again.
And I live for it.

Its funny how those scars on my legs,
That remind me of how much pain Ive been in,
Have now been braided into the marks that write out the story of
How my body grew the two greatest
Loves of my life -
Flawlessly and without any of the brokenness I was convinced would easily be passed onto whoever came into contact with me.

Women walk around
Sleep deprived
And starving over the latest diet.
Holding their keys between their
Fingers as they clench their hand into a fist, because it's late and it gets dark so fast lately.
They've had hands grab their waist to move them out of the way.
Men who tuck her hair behind her ear and tell her she is "so beautiful, I don't even understand why you wear makeup."

Spending our time with
Grown men
Who use us as therapists,
And bank accounts.
Grown men
Who replace their mothers with us
And demand our time, love and energy anytime we accidentally make eye contact with them.
Holding onto the heel of our shoes as we climb, telling us to slow down.
Asking us to come back to where they stand because that's where they find we fit best.

Grown men who,
after all of that,
Ask us to smile more
And wonder why we don't want to **** them.

I didnt want to get to know anyone else,
I just wanted to un-know myself.
The only way I could see that happening is by spending as much time as possible
Diving into new hearts and between new legs, holding onto new arms.

Every 24 hours is spent cutting pieces out of myself to give to the people I care for. Creating two new humans has doubled the speed that I slice through each layer. After 6 years of pulling apart and giving away pieces of me that I can never get back, I am left with barely enough to live.
At night, I sit there and look into every crack and dark space, trying to find enough of myself to put together a collage of whatever identity I can find.

This skin and these insides squeeze too tight sometimes and I cant breathe anything but shallow breaths, that never seem to satisfy my lungs need for air.
These eyes and this heart seem to be sad all the time lately, and cant find a spot to sit comfortably to see out the window we used to spend hours living through.

Im tired. This body doesnt serve the purpose it used to, anymore.

I'll always be the nurterer and the comforter, the seat at the table that little humans call mom and the others lean on.

I'll never trade those words for anything different.

But I know I'll always have a secret pocket of things I feel inside, that don't fit out here in life.

I'll always be a dreamer of colorful and impossible things.
I'll be a lover of many people, spreading myself so thin that I come close to the edge of that cliff over and over in this lifetime.

I want to have that vague taste of desperation under my tongue, forever.
I want to write about my heart feeling broken, about how a strangers kiss changed my entire life, about grief and all those little things that give joy.

I want to feel summer rain on my skin and not be able to think about anything but that sensation for moment upon moment.

I want to get goosebumps when he leans in too close and have all the scenarios of how he will kiss me to go through my head.

I want to cry when I see a mother lose their child. I want to feel my insides being torn out and then having to live without it.

I want to taste something sour and then go back for more, because the feeling inside my mouth and against my cheeks feels a little bit like being alive.

I'll never let these things go.
I keep them organized and quiet in the back of my head and the middle of my body so that everyday I'm reminded that the human I am is so much bigger inside.

Inside this body is an incredible amount of the biggest things you could ever think of, and I carry it well.

I dont feel like a human being.
I feel like a
Mother,
Partner,
Ghost.
Everything I hear is an empty noise,
Every touch is painful.
My insides hurt.

I want to drown in a bucket of the pretty things I tell you to convince you that you mean something.
I want you to see that I'm so committed to your ego that I'm willing to get lost in it. And when you realize I've gone quiet it'll be too late.
Then you can sit there wondering where all those open wounds came from.

And realize it meant nothing.

I've had some hands that have touched me, break me.
And they live inside of me still.
Sometimes when I listen too closely I can hear everything they said to me and it takes everything I have to remind myself not to listen.
I want to love completely someday and without being afraid.
But every person I look up into I'm worried they have a mask on.
I've seen lovely and beautiful people but all my hands want to do is search for that corner of the mask that's lifting so I can catch it before it scares me again, deeper than before.
A habit I can't seem to break.

Ive complained about the material this blanket, that I stitched together, is made out of - without realizing it was my choice all along.

I am not here to be your
Manic pixie dream girl.
Im here to live
And love you.
Im not an object for you
To pour your affection
And ego into.
Im here to learn
And thrive.
I dont know how to be
Your perfect woman.
I know how to be me.

How can anyone look at all of the
Things that have made me into this
Dark, broken, human
And think
She is beautiful
Loveable
Or any other word that describes those kinds of people you want to collect into your life.

We have spent 12 years dissolving the shells we grew as we got older,
Everytime we would get close
Another layer seemed to
Disappear.
Our flesh and loving words
Became shelter over our
Open wounds.
I dont know where I end
Where you begin
Or how we do this thing called
Independance
Partnership
Detach with love.

I want to know you on the outside
And not only as this blur of comfort.

Ive always been the softest thing around me and every person who's buried themselves in me never even waited for an invite.

And then you were there
Totally perfect, and different
And I didn't feel worried about what you thought of me.

Then you kissed me just to kiss me.
And you told me I looked lovely.

They pollute me
And divide me
I felt watered down my whole life.

Then you kiss me
Pretty baby
Just to kiss me
Not to bring me to bed.

Everything's all of a sudden
Sweetness
It was simple
I don't wonder
I just kiss you to kiss you.